Compliance or Catalyst: Faculty Perspectives on the Role of Accreditation in Engineering Ethics Education [Full Research Paper]
- Conference
- Location
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Minneapolis, MN
- Publication Date
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August 23, 2022
- Start Date
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June 26, 2022
- End Date
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June 29, 2022
- Conference Session
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Engineering Ethics Division: Perspectives on Engineering Ethics Education
- Page Count
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15
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--41366
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/41366
- Download Count
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397
Paper Authors
Madeline Polmear University of Florida
Madeline Polmear is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie, EUTOPIA Science & Innovation Cofund Fellow in the Law, Science, Technology & Society research group at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. Her primary research interests relate to engineering ethics education and the development of societal responsibility and professional competence inside and outside the classroom. She also works in the areas of informal learning and diversity, equity, and inclusion. She has a Ph.D. in civil engineering, M.S. in civil engineering, and B.S. in environmental engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Angela Bielefeldt University of Colorado Boulder
Angela Bielefeldt, Ph.D., P.E., is a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering (CEAE). She is also the Director for the Engineering Plus program, which is in the process of being renamed to Integrated Design Engineering. Bielefeldt also serves as the co-director for the Engineering Education and AI-Augmented Learning Integrated Research Theme (IRT) at CU. She has been a faculty member at CU since 1996, serving in various roles including Faculty Director of the Sustainable By Design Residential Academic Program (2014-2017), Director of the Environmental Engineering program (2006-2010), and ABET Assessment Coordinator for the CEAE Department (2008-2018). Bielefeldt is active in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), serving on the Civil Engineering Program Criteria Task Committee (2019-2022) and the Body of Knowledge 3 Task Committee (2016-2018). She is the Senior Editor for the International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering (IJSLE) and a Deputy Editor for the ASCE Journal of Civil Engineering Education. Her research focuses on engineering education, including ethics, social responsibility, sustainable engineering, and community engagement. Bielefeldt is also a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education.
Abstract
Despite the significant link between curricula and accreditation, there is limited research on engineering educators’ perspectives on accreditation related to ethics and societal impacts. This full research paper addresses the following research questions: (1) What are faculty members’ perspectives on the role of accreditation in engineering ethics education? (2) How, if at all, does accreditation influence their teaching practices? This research was designed to understand the influence that accreditation, as an external force, has on ethics education via the educators tasked with teaching it. This study employed an exploratory qualitative approach and drew on semi-structured interviews that probed participants’ ethics teaching practices and perspectives, including the influences and motivations related to their instruction. Interviews were completed with 20 engineering ethics educators who represented a range of engineering disciplines across 17 institutions in the United States. Inductive analysis of the transcripts indicated a bifurcated response to accreditation in the context of ethics and societal impacts education. On one hand, accreditation drove the integration of ethics in the curriculum and signaled its importance in engineering. On the other hand, accreditation was perceived to reduce ethics education to a matter of compliance, create an outsize pressure on those tasked with teaching ethics, and impinge academic freedom. The findings pointed to the varying and sometimes conflicting perspectives on accreditation. An understanding of how accreditation can either spur or stifle educators’ engagement in ethics instruction has implications for faculty motivation. The findings also highlight the need to think beyond accreditation in justifying and supporting the inclusion of ethics and societal impacts in engineering education.
Polmear, M., & Bielefeldt, A. (2022, August), Compliance or Catalyst: Faculty Perspectives on the Role of Accreditation in Engineering Ethics Education [Full Research Paper] Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41366
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